My ride to work is normally 45 minutes, minimum in rush hour. It’s been 3 hours in ice or snow or if there’s an accident or flood or other problem. Add to that wear and tear on the car. Tires last two years, tops, so about 400 dollars every two years just for tires. Oil changes have to be every few months. The car gets about 30k miles on it annually. I can’t lease a car due to the high mileage I put on it.
The commute is grueling. There are groups on FB where people talk about traffic and other road conditions. My 7 hour a day plus one hour lunch, 8 hours total, becomes a 10 hour day with the commute. When I had to take my daughter to day care it was an hour and a half with the drop off.
Now, since the shut down, I have been working from home for a majority of it. What a breath of fresh air! No more getting up early, getting out, worrying about the traffic, being stressed out for the hour ride, worrying about walking in ten minutes late and getting in trouble from the boss or hearing comments from coworkers about some people being late. Now, wake up and turn on the computer and voila! At work! I can take a shower at 2 pm or any time I want. I can run out and get an appointment taken care of and come back and log on to check email at night if I want to, or take a call any time of day or night if I want to, to make up for lost time. Nobody knows or cares about lost time since the work is getting done. With my middle-school aged daughter doing a lot of school remotely, I can be home to supervise her or make her breakfast or lunch, or get dinner into the oven in late afternoon instead of walking in the house at 6:30 and trying to start it then.
In the summer, if we wanted to do something in the afternoon, it was so much easier to plan and schedule rather than dealing with getting out of work and driving home, and having to factor that commute time in. Now with dentist appointments or any other appointments, it’s so much easier to not have to deal with the dreaded ride home. I can work until the very minute I jump in the shower, instead of having to factor in leaving an hour early for the commute.
A friend is going to stay home for the rest of the school year, because her job is allowing it. She lives near me and works near me so she has similar stress with the commute. She said her company is going to drastically reduce office space, thereby saving the company money on expensive overhead and with happier employees.